Trip to Scotland 1983: Four and half months in the Highlands and Islands

[DCampbell16B]

£2.30 [Hostel Inverness]
£1.96 [spam or bread]
25p [bread or spam]

Try for Boar Stone? [I wanted to see it, one possibility for the day] Call Kincraig today. Buy bread, spam.
Pringle - small blanket for Mom Douglas?
T-shirts >=£3, pullovers, Cheaper Kiltmaker. [In spite of my increasingly limited funds, I still had to buy some gifts for people back home. My mother's mother was a Douglas.]

Back early. Group of kids in from Nicolson Stornoway on way to Mod. Made me homesick to hear Island English and some Gaelic. Talked to leaders (Mr. Scott Mrs. McPhail). Pep talk told them speak Gaelic in the streets and don't tell people you traveled on Sunday.

[DCampbell16B]

£2.60 [Hostel Inverness]

● No good

● Hills down Glen Mor

● Stone Circle


Up "early" to be off w/ Abel (Aussie) and Peter (American) to Boar Stone. Nicholson kids off today (morning). Snow on Ben Wyvis. Day clear, cool. Motte [unclear?] Was mostly overgrown. Boar Stone carving clear on standing stone, but fenced in. Stone circle very nice. Chamber Cairn large, but fallen in, big stones. At lunch by river, some showers. Watched Avengers vs Remington Steele. Walked around.

● Inverness Alley

Spent evening in. Watched some football (Euro and American) then Gone With The Wind. Commercial free (BBC1) except 10 minutes news at ½.

[It was interesting to me in the evening to sit and listen to the teens from Barra, the Uists and Lewis comparing dialects. The bainne vs boinne conversation stuck in my head as it one of the first things pointed out to me when I got to Ness.

A murmur was going around the hostel that there was snow on Ben Wyvis that morning. I was sitting by the window of the hostel, enjoying the view of the Ben and the snow. But as I did the sun came over the horizon. The top of the Ben was hit first by the light. The snow lit up like beacon. The murmurs turned into "Wow". I'm afraid the photo doesn't do it justice, but it's all I have.]


● Ben Wyvis and the sun on the snow

[DCampbell16B]

£1.08
£2.60 [hostel]

Trying for Dingwall? Beauly? (House of Campbell Highland Tweed House)

1739 350 men from Argyll
but to North Carolina? [I think I had found a reference to these men emigrating]

No luck hitching. Library and hostel today. Waste of time.

Evening ?Girls from Peterhead here. 1st Aberdeenshire accent I've seen heard (quines/loons). Also, 1 is ex-Canadian, [she has a] Canadian accent, Aberdeen words.

[Sorry for the long hiatus. We had company coming. In all the cleaning and organizing the journal got put, if not away, slightly out of the way.]

[DCampbell16B]

38p
52p
£2.60 [hostel]

Bank doesn't have check, don't know what to do. Aberdeen? Try for job after all? Back to Western Isles and camp? New warden discussion on Findhorn community, religion, travel and life. Also, Gordon losing his father, etc. Some TV, some reading. Faroese girl here tonight. Watched a little TV.

[Gordon was the new warden. The discussion about losing his father came up because I had lost mine a couple of years before.
To pick up the tale of the check, I had received a check from home for $150 which I had taken to a bank to have cashed. I kept going back to see if it had cleared. I could have stretched that money into a longer stay.
The 38p and 52p was likely for food.]